How To: Ja'rakal, the Troll Warlord

INTRODUCTION

______________________________________________________________________________________________When the Sentinel (Radiant) first gathered their forces, The Troll Warriors were considered primitive and unreliable. Their pride wounded, many refused to join, some even considering siding with the Scourge (Dire). Only a hotheaded young Warlord called Jah'rakal joined the Sentinel (Radiant). Known as "Blinding Axe" in troll tongue, both for the blinding speed of his axes and his trademark blind technique, his unstoppable rampages have already made him a legend among his allies. However Jah'rakal fights not for the Sentinel (Radiant), or even to defend the Ancients, but to show Elves, Men, Orcs and anyone else that trolls are the best fighters in the world.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

The Troll Warlord is the definition of an auto-attacker. He is able to choose to attack from a distance or up close, where he becomes an enraged hulk. He capitalizes on attack speed, being able to strike and move quickly, as well as enhance his allies to do the same. The strength of Jah'rakal is his tunnel vision, where others fall, he gains by focusing single targets. He is Ja'rakal, the Troll; a true warlord.

PURP - Q, your first ability.LIME - W, your second ability.BLUE - E, your third ability.PINK - R, your ultimate.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The below content is appropriately color coded to the above key. All of the following information, with the exception of the actual [ RUNES ] or the [ PLEASE READ ], initially correspond with their description accordingly. If something is not understood fully regarding the color code, please comment with your question / issue.

ROLE and POSITION

ROLE:

Troll Warlord: CARRY

Ja'rakal is a pure DPS focused CARRY; He has only but a single cast that deals significant direct damage, every other skill accents him to increased attack speed. Just like his role, his items are tunnel visioned, he is very fairly inflexible in build. Your role as a troll is to completely wipe the competition, every kill possible should be acquired, the team benefits from you being as built as possible.

POSITION:

Assuming you bought your starting equipment as suggested and are wondering what to do now, you might want to consider your lane or jungle position; for the purpose of this guide you will head to a DUO or TRI lane. Ja'rakal is most compatible in the SAFE lane to have that easily secured farm. You may also SOLO the MID according to picks.

ITEM MECHANICS

ITEM MECHANICS:

This is a section that is not in any other guide I currently have written. This section is exclusively for Troll Warlord due to special mechanics with his first ability "Berserker Rage". The ability allows him to switch between ranged and melee; to effectively understand the reasoning behind this guide's skill set and item build you must first read another guide of mine: Melee VS. Ranged

ITEM PREPARATION:

This is a special mechanic that was in previous versions of DoTA, this does not work in the current DoTA mechanic of Troll Warlord. If you have not read the guide, I strongly urge you to at least scroll down to the item section. The main reason for this is very important, you will take your first skill and activate it BEFORE you purchase your items. You will then re-activate your ability to revert you to ranged. By doing all this you activate the melee effects of your items, allowing you access to the superior abilities of each your items. You will do this every time you purchase a dual-interface item.

TEAM FIGHTING

FRIENDS and FOES

Trolling with troll?

A proper set of ally heroes for Ja'rakal consist of two major types. The first type of ally that you require is a SUPPORT of course, this is carry allies 101. The second list is populated by any major DISABLER, as you pound on the foe with your well placed auto-attacks.

Trollacolypse is surely spelled out for you when facing any of these brutal opponents. Troll is numero uno in stacked fights, but more often then not you'll be countered by simple CC, or heroes that turn your agile moves against you with ON-HIT REACTIVE abilities.

PLEASE READ

These guides are somewhat time consuming to produce, and most of them do lack some at the moment, but for the most part I believe they provide enough information to play properly with the given hero. Even though the guide is still UNFINISHED, I still need feedback on how to better it. The item build and such is always up for change, and your opinion is wanted as long as it's not something that smashes the entire guide because you don't like a little detail. Please keep in mind: if you have the time to read this guide and vote on it then you should have a sufficient amount of time to comment what pleased or displeased you.

TLDR:Please take the time to provide feedback.What can I change? What areas need improvement? Is the guide visually unappealing?

Once again loving the style xCO2, guide looks good and is well written/easy to follow. You'll find that a lot of the time you will get people who downvote without leaving feedback however keep the quality up and the upvotes will beat the downvotes :)

Once again loving the style xCO2, guide looks good and is well written/easy to follow. You'll find that a lot of the time you will get people who downvote without leaving feedback however keep the quality up and the upvotes will beat the downvotes :)

+1 again, look forward to seeing the end product.

Yeah, I still find it irritating that he down voted the guide for no apparent reason. I was just on Wc3 playing my guide exactly how I wrote it and got a triple xD. Good news, according to Cyborgmatt, troll should be out in about two patches.

Lol, yeah a shame, but I never uninstalled Wc3 so I play him on there every so often. He will be released somewhat sooner in the updates, maybe two or three patches from now. Thanks for the positive feed back. +1 rep :)

Great guide played a couple of games with him in Dota 1 and did very well.Keep up the good work.Do you think you might be able to add a section talking about how you can jungle with him?

Actually he is no longer a viable jungle, too many revisions to his abilities, in the latest patch it is very difficult to complete your routes and leaves you lacking in any form of escape if invaded, and no ganks. I myself wanted to write this guide with a jungle alternative, but alas troll is no longer a jungle monster.

I don't think you really need the color code like if you really want to signify something important the BOLD or h2 code thingy works. Other than that good guide, haven't played the Troll in like 4 years especially after the change, barely recognized him at all!

I don't think you really need the color code like if you really want to signify something important the BOLD or h2 code thingy works. Other than that good guide, haven't played the Troll in like 4 years especially after the change, barely recognized him at all!

Yeah he was definitely a change up, better laning, but completely damaged as a jungler now. I figured a lot of people are getting sick of bland walls of text, which I see is a complaint on most guides. I'll have more text coming that will make the sections more relevant to the color coding; but if you think its too much, I can tone it down...

Actually he is no longer a viable jungle, too many revisions to his abilities, in the latest patch it is very difficult to complete your routes and leaves you lacking in any form of escape if invaded, and no ganks. I myself wanted to write this guide with a jungle alternative, but alas troll is no longer a jungle monster.

Well thank you very much for the quick replay.Tried out manta on him and worked pretty good do you think it's a viable choice? Also a safer starting item build would be 1 stout, 3 gg, 1 tango and 1 salve. You could even add a wand with that and early to mid game it would be a live saver.